Magic Johnson is in Philly, and spent time having 1-on-1 convos with players. He also spoke moments ago (airing on
@SpectrumSN
coming up), with a general message that the players are professionals, and he expects them to move on post deadline, and focus on winning games.

Magic Johnson is in Philly, and spent time having 1-on-1 convos with players. He also spoke moments ago (airing on
@SpectrumSN
coming up), with a general message that the players are professionals, and he expects them to move on post deadline, and focus on winning games.

"I know I lied to ya'll faces... but it's part of the business. Now go try to win games for me."

Naaah. These guys aren't trying to win for him. It's their vocation and they're paid well to try to win games. And if they act like babies for a prolonged period of time, they stand even less of a chance to remain here if the want to. I think they realize that, too. You can't be a slackass even in garbage time in the big leagues._________________GOAT MAGIC REELSEDALE TRIBUTEEDDIE DONX!

Magic Johnson is in Philly, and spent time having 1-on-1 convos with players. He also spoke moments ago (airing on
@SpectrumSN
coming up), with a general message that the players are professionals, and he expects them to move on post deadline, and focus on winning games.

The meeting was unnecessary. Deadline was over and they beat boston. They had already moved on.

It's always a good thing to have management talk its employees, in groups, individually, whatever. That's how you rebuild trust. If you assume that each player mentioned in trade talks would cope with the situation identically, you would be leaving a lot to chance. It's good that he did this. A small first step, at least.

Pretty tepid responses from players in the post-game locker room when asked about Magic Johnson's conversation with the team.

Magic’s talk sounds like it backfired.

As I said, Magic has shown himself to be shark-like, two-faced, dishonest, and disloyal.

The Lakers have no reason to take anything he has to say seriously, nor believe it.

If Magic didn't realize it, and tried to just pass it off as a "You're professionals. Move on." All that does is compound the problem.

The players aren't gonna trust Magic again or this FO for that matter. Their own fault.

For as much trash as they loved talking about the old FO, for as often as Jeanie loved throwing her brother under the bus RIGHT BEFORE free agency, and as much as Magic loved trash talking what a leader was and wasn't, while bigging up the people he never had any faith in. It all adds up and comes back on you.

This FO doesn't get any better till Jeanie steps down, Jesse takes over, and Ryan West is made GM. Fish will forever rot from the head down, and as long as Jeanie is still the head, and empowering people that think the way she does, the Lakers will suffer.

With the way they ousted Jim and Mitch, they don't get the benefit of a "lets give this FO 2-3 years to get their footing" because when you oust someone for not being fast enough, you are supposed to bring in people that get things done efficiently in that fast way.

In reality, if we're gonna give Magilinka 3-4 seasons to "get their footing" due to their inexperience, then it was pointless getting rid of Mitch and Jim for not being 'fast enough'. When their plan of keeping and developing the young talent which would have come on RIGHT AS LeBron joined the team, is looking far, far better. Than this "get rich quick scheme" of a FO we have now.

When all the Lakers had to flipping do was wait, they rushed, and blew it yet again. These are the signs of a bad FO, I'm sorry to say, and it's only gonna keep building from here. We can either change it now, or watch as this team falls apart over the next 2-3 seasons till a change is finally made and it's far too late to salvage anything we could have had from the past 5 years that we now don't get to benefit from because this FO has no clue what they're doing, or what they had._________________How NBA 2K18 failed the All-Time Lakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxMBYm3wwxk

Last edited by MJST on Sun Feb 10, 2019 5:22 pm; edited 1 time in total

I've always liked Jeanie... but I have little confidence for her to step in and intervene in this situation.

If Magic and Rob don't cut their losses and ride out the LBJ train without doing any more damage to the team and hope he asks out... we will end up with only AD in three years... with no core, no picks... and only mediocrity to look forward to until the picks start over in six years.

I've always liked Jeanie... but I have little confidence for her to step in and intervene in this situation.

Why would she? The entire reason Magic is here is because he and her think alike and he shares her ideals.

She'll continue to empowering people that think in the same oudated fashion that she does. As long as she believes "We're the Lakers, and we're supposed to get a max FO every year cause we don't build through the draft." that is what we'll see empowered. The moment Jim and Mitch strayed from that and started trying to build around the youngsters, they were gone THAT season. And every single youngster was gone from the team each year after. First Russell, then Randle, now Zubac, and they tried to get rid of Ingram, Kuzma and Lonzo too just a few days ago.

It's impossible to succeed with any kind of consistency, with a FO that constantly sets back any progress we make because it's not their definition of how "Lakers" are 'supposed' to make progress. Long as that "We don't rebuild..we reload" mentality exists, any progress we make through rebuilding, will be undervalued by a FO that refuses to acknowledge it's importance over "chasing max free agents every off-season."

TMG wrote:

So did we really have a chance to get Jerry West and took Magic instead? If so then Dont mix business with friendship Jeanie damnit.

The team are clearly still reeling from trade talks, that wasn't a cohesive performance on the floor. One of the reasons why Kyrie was said to have left Cleveland was it was leaked the FO included his name in a trade package.

Pretty tepid responses from players in the post-game locker room when asked about Magic Johnson's conversation with the team.

Magic’s talk sounds like it backfired.

Pep talks about being a professional in the face of being traded rings hollow from someone who's never been traded.

It's also not common for trades that don't go through to be talked about so much publicly. The only other time I can think of something like this happening was during the Chris Paul trade and that poisoned that Locker room too. Pau has a rep of being the quintessential professional, but all the trade talk got to him too. The vetoed trade sent Lamar Odom on a downward spiral.